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Bareface Magazine, Issue IV: article "kiddofspeed.com"

"In the years since the buzz around kiddofspeed, a number of internet services have emerged that allow us all to be urban explorers, safely away from crumbling masonry and caesium-137. Google Maps provides detailed road directions on how to reach Prypiat Amusement Park from Kiev. (Public transit and cycling options are not at this time provided.) Flickr and Panoramio are filled with images of the ruins of a city which was only built in the 1970s."

galinsky.com: Portland Building, Portland, by Michael Graves

"Graves gained a number of high profile commissions after the Portland Building, and the style of postmodern architecture it typifies became briefly popular in the 1980s. However, this style has few adherents today, and in 2009, Travel + Leisure magazine named the building as one of the world's fifteen ugliest. Whether one loves or hates it though, the Portland Building remains an important landmark in the history of architecture."

dissertation: The Worship of the Ruin at St Peter's College

"St Peter's College (also known as St Peter's seminary) is now a ruin: the building is covered in graffiti, which variously boast of sexual conquests, or, more eruditely, quote Herbert Read; plants grow all over the building and inside of it; parts of it have collapsed; other parts have been demolished altogether, leaving only traces that they were ever there; the most sacred part of the building, the high altar, has been smashed by sledgehammer, and the timber beams above it set on fire numerous times. Its owner,the Archdiocese of Glasgow, regards the building as something of an embarrassing and expensive problem. It was formally opened during a period of fantastic optimism in 1966, and the decision was taken to close it only thirteen years later, in 1979. Today,they have said they would happily give it away. Ken Crilley, estates director for theArchdiocese, is quoted as saying that "it wasn't our fault someone listed it as category A." Despite its state, or perhaps because of it, the architectural community has never been more interested in the building."

iain mackenzie

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